HOW POWERFUL PRESENTATIONS

Simple, Easy, Quick 10 Step System for Creating Great Presentations and Speeches Even when you dont have much time!
to create

Akash Karia www.CommunicationSkillsTips.com

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The Promise:
In this short e-book, you will discover a step-by-step proven plan which teaches you how to create powerful presentations and speeches even when youre running out of time! When you follow this 10 step system, you will be able to easily and quickly create presentations which engage, motivate and inspire your audience. If you find this e-book useful, then please share this e-book to your friends and colleagues because Id appreciate it.

Akash. P. Karia www.CommunicationSkillsTips.com

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Step 1: Whats Your Purpose?

Before you begin writing a single word of your speech or start designing your Powerpoint slides, you must identify the purpose of your presentation. Knowing the objective of your presentation will help you decide which points to include in your presentation and which ones to toss out. As a result you will be able to deliver a focused presentation that drives home your key message.

To help you identify the purpose of your presentation, ask yourself:

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What do I want my audience members to do, think and feel after the end my your presentation? What information does the audience expect me to cover? Identifying the purpose of your presentation may sound like a very basic step, but it is crucial to the success of your presentation. For example, I once attended a recruitment talk by an organization that I was hoping to work for. The presenter believed that her purpose was to give us (her audience) as much information about the company as possible. Therefore, she spent the better part of an hour talking about company's timeline, starting with when it was founded and detailing all the events that had allowed the firm to become one of the largest in Asia. The audience's purpose for attending the talk was to find out what sort of benefits they could get from working with one of best firm's in Asia. Unfortunately, the presentation was a complete failure because the presenter identified the wrong purpose. 4|Page

The lesson here is simple yet powerful: Make sure you identify the correct purpose of your presentation.

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Step 2: Whos Your Audience?

Presentations are not about the speaker. They are about the audience. Presentations and speeches should be about the value that the speaker can add to the audience members lives. Therefore, you should spend some time researching who your audience is and how you can add value to their lives. It is best to know who your audience members are early on because this information will help you decide which examples will be most relevant, how much time you should spend addressing each point and what objections and

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questions you need to address in order to persuade your audience. If you already personally know most of the people who will be attending your presentation, then this step will most likely take only a couple of minutes. However, if you are invited to speak at a large conference, then this step may take a lot longer because you may need to send out a pre-event questionnaire to find out more information about your audience members. Below are a couple of questions that will help you find out more gather important information about your audience: Who will be in your audience? (Age/Occupation/Gender/Education Level) How many people will be attending your presentation? What are they expecting from you? How much knowledge do they have of the topic you are talking about?

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If you are trying to persuade them, what are the possible objections you will face? If you are trying to inform them, what difficulties will they have in understanding? Can you interview any audience members in order to include their stories and experiences in your presentation?

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Step 3: Write Your Core Message in less than 20 words

Once you have identified your purpose and gathered some information about your audience members, you need to create your Core Message. Your Core Message is the most essential concept/idea in your speech. Which one concept/idea do you want your listeners to understand and remember? Or, alternatively, what one single action do you want your listeners to take after they have heard your speech?

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To help you identify the core message of your speech, answer these questions:

If your audience was to forget everything else that you said, what is the one single thing that you would want them to remember? If you are delivering an informative presentation, then what one piece of information do you want your audience to remember? If you are delivering a persuasive presentation, then what one point are you trying to prove? If you are delivering an inspirational/ motivational speech, what action do you want your audience members to take at the end? You should be able to write out this core message on a piece of paper in less than 20 words. If it takes you longer than 20 words to explain your Core Message, then it is not clear enough. 10 | P a g e

Step 4: Identify Your Key Points

After you have written down your Core Message, write down several key points that you can use to support your Core Message. For example: if you are pitching a new business to a group of venture-capitalists, then your key points might be: (1) There's a lot of demand for this product and (2) There's very little competition

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Also, arrange your key points into a logical sequence so that each point naturally leads to the next one.

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Step 5: Anchor Your Key Points

After deciding on your key points, you need to tie them down with an anchor? An anchor is a tool which will hook the Point into the listeners memory. There are three anchors that you can use. You dont need to use all three, but make sure that you use at least one for each key point: Anecdote Tell a story that illustrates your main point. A well-told story acts like a memorable testimonial. Learn more about the power of stories in this post (click here)

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Activity If you can create some sort of quick game/role-playing activity that will solidify your point, then be sure to include it. Just make sure that the purpose of the activity is clear to everyone. Analogy Heres an example of an analogy from the book The Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution by John Gray: Think of your body as an old-fashioned steam engine. You need to feed the fire with coal. When there is no coal available, the stoker slows down so that all the available fuel is not consumed. Likewise, your metabolism slows down for the rest of the day when you dont eat breakfast. John Gray

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Step 6: Create an Attention Grabbing Opening

The beginning of a presentation is one of the most important parts of the presentation due to the primacy effect. If you do not get the attention of your audience members within the first 30 seconds of your opening, they will mentally tune out your presentation. Therefore, you should take your time to craft a powerful opening: Do Not Begin with "Hello, I'd like to talk about..." This is a boring line that makes you seem like a dull presenter. Instead, dive right into your presentation.

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Do Not Begin with a "Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning. Thank you for having me..." Do not spend a the most important part of your presentation on trivial formalities. A simple "Good morning" and a smile is great, then dive straight into your speech.

Begin with a Story: Stories are an effective way to start because they are inherently interesting. For example, Barack Obama began his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention with his personal story: "Let's face it. My presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student..."

Begin with a Shocking Statement/Statistic: If you can surprise people with a shocking statistic or a statement that goes against conventional wisdom, then this will surprise your audience members and increase alertness.

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Begin with a Question: Questions are a very powerful way to begin because questions get people thinking. Since the beginning of your presentation is one of the most important parts of the presentations, I recommend that you write your opening. This way, you can edit the opening until you have it perfect. Which of the four proven openings will you use?

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Step 7: Craft a Powerful Call to Action

Powerful presenters take their time in creating powerful endings. Instead of ending with, "Thank you for having me" or the horrible "And that's the end of my presentation", you should use your conclusion to re-emphasize your most important points. They then end with a powerful call to action, letting the audience what next step they should take. When creating your conclusion, think about what you what your audience to do as a result of your presentation. What's your powerful call to action? What's the next thing that you want

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your audience to do as a result of listening to your speech/presentation? The ending of your presentation is your opportunity to leave a lasting impact, so I suggest that you write out the closing of your speech. This way, you can edit the ending until you have its perfect.

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Step 8: Rehearse Your Presentation

After you've written out the opening and closing of your speech, it's time to rehearse your speech. Wait, what? What happened to the middle of the speech and all the key points? Why haven't we written those out yet? I recommend that you verbally go through your speech once so that you can get a feel of how the speech fits together. Since you've written out the opening and closing of your speech, you 20 | P a g e

should have no problem with those two parts. However, when you get to Key Point #1, you may find yourself struggling. Don't worry, keep talking and link Key Point #1 to Anchor #1. Then transition to Key Point #2 and explain Anchor #2. Do the best you can and don't worry about how you sound. However, as you ad lib your way through the key points and the anchors, the best part is that you will find new ideas occurring to you. Write those new ideas down as they come to you. I also recommend that you video-tape this adlib session because you can use the recording to create a first draft of your speech in Step 9.

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Step 9: NowEdit
At this point you may be wondering, "Is it necessary to write out my speech/presentation word for word?" My recommendation is that if the presentation is an important one and is less than 15 minutes long, then you can script your full speech. Use the recording from the previous step to help you. The advantage of writing your speech out is that you can edit the content until it all flows smoothly. However, do not try and memorize your script word for word because this can lead to you sounding like a robot. On the day of the presentation, don't worry about sticking to the script...you'll know your material well enough deliver it fluently enough without having to stick to the script. 22 | P a g e

If you are scheduled to deliver a 1 hour presentation, then it may not be a good idea to try and script the whole thing. Instead, write a couple of bullet points for each Key Point and related Anchor and think carefully about the transitions between different points. Ad lib each Key Point and Anchor until you're pretty good at fluently explaining each of the key points and associated anchors.

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Step 10: Practice, Get Feedback & Improve

The final step is to practice your presentation in-front of a live audience. Gather a couple of friends and colleagues at your house and try and go through your presentation as you would on the actual day. At the end of your presentation, ask them for their feedback ("What can I do to improve this presentation?"). Push them until they give you actual points for improvement, and then go back and smooth out your presentation.

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Wrap-Up: 10 Step System For Creating Powerful Presentations

To wrap it all up, heres your simple 10 step system for creating powerful presentations, even when youre running out of time! 1. Whats your Purpose? 2. Whos your Audience? 3. Write your Core Message in less than 20 words 4. Identify your Key Points 5. Anchor your Key Points 6. Create an Attention-Grabbing Opening 25 | P a g e

7. Craft a Powerful Call to Action 8. Rehearse your presentation 9. NowEdit 10. Practice, Get Feedback & Improve

PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO REPRODUCE THIS E-Book in whole or in part. Feel free to email this e-book to your friends and colleagues, share it on your Facebook and Twitter pages and to post it on your blog/website. While you certainly dont have to, I would appreciate it if you could link back to my website: www.CommunicationSkillsTips.com

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